PJ Harvey has returned with news of her ninth studio album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, on April 15th through Island Records.
Recorded in London’s Somerset House, the album was visited in a living exhibition called Recording in Progress where museum visitors could watch Harvey and producers Flood and John Parish make the album through one-way glass.
The album’s inspiration was taken from trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C. in the lead up and the subject matter of ‘The Wheel’ is drawn from her global travels and addresses conflict and the innocents caught up in them. “Hey little children don’t disappear (I heard it was 28,000) / Lost upon a revolving wheel / (I heard it was 28,000).” 28,000 possibly refers to number of troops deployed to Kosovo.
The title of the album refers to Hope VI “a plan by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, meant to revitalise the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments.”
Here is the radio version and the full version of ‘The Wheel’
The Hope Six Demolition Project track-listing:
1. The Community of Hope
2. The Ministry of Defence
3. A Line in the Sand
4. Chain of Keys
5. River Anacostia
6. Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
7. The Orange Monkey
8. Medicinals
9. The Ministry of Social Affairs
10. The Wheel
11. Dollar, Dollar
PJ Harvey is playing festivals dates with her new 9-piece band:
Tour dates
June 4 Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Spain
June 4-5 We Love Green Festival, Paris, France
June 12 Field Day, London, United Kingdom
June 17-18 Sideways Festival, Helsinki, Finland
June 20 Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin, Germany
June 22 INMusic, Zagreb, Croatia
June 24-26 Down The Rabbit Hole, Beuningen, The Netherlands
June 29 Open’er Festival, Gdynia, Poland
June 29-July 2 Roskilde Festival, Denmark
July 2 Rock Werchter, Werchter, Belgium
July 3 Beauregard Festival, Herouville St Clair, France
July 7 Pohoda Festival, Trenčín, Slovakia
August 11 OYA, Oslo, Norway
August 11-13 Way Out West, Gothenburg, Sweden
